


Made with Love

by spacehopper



Series: The Accursed Knitter [1]
Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-09
Updated: 2017-12-09
Packaged: 2019-02-12 17:10:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12964320
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spacehopper/pseuds/spacehopper
Summary: For many centuries the royals of Lucis have been receiving horrific knitwear of mysterious origin.Noct finds out where it came from.





	Made with Love

**Author's Note:**

> Written for this kinkmeme prompt: 
> 
> https://ffxv-kinkmeme.dreamwidth.org/4398.html?thread=7854382#cmt7854382
> 
> Ardyn learns to knit at some point in his thousands years of existence and that guy who gives all of his friends and family ugly sweaters and scarves each year. And yes, by family I do mean the Royal Family of Lucis who recive mysterious packages contains the most colorblind knitwear ever.

It was during the early years of the reign of Queen Sibylla that the strange knitwear first appeared. For many years it was rejected as a matter of course; the queen was very beautiful, and received many gifts. A few poorly knit sweaters and garish scarves were the least among them. And yet one day, in the later years of her reign, the queen stumbled upon them as they were being disposed. She held one up, admiring the warmth of the item, and the care put into it, despite some questionable color choices and a truly unfortunate pattern of what might have been intended as chocobos, but more closely resembled flans hit with a fire spell. And at this point, the queen was in her later years, often cold, and had been known to remark that she was, to quote, “too old to give a shit about fashion.”

Thus Queen Sibylla began the tradition of wearing the mysterious knitwear, which has continued to this day.

*

“You have got to be kidding me,” Noct said, holding a sweater out in front of him with a look of abject horror on his face. It was mustard yellow, and there were tiny malboros on it. Ignis frowned. Or maybe that was a mindflayer? It seemed a bit inappropriate as a subject for a sweater, but then the mysterious creators of the knitwear had been noted for their rather avant-garde tendencies. It had even sparked certain trends in high Insomnia fashion, like purple coerl print. 

“Noct, it is your duty as a prince to wear the ceremonial knitwear to the Feast of Shiva,” Ignis said. “As I said, this tradition—”

“Was started by Queen Sibylla five hundred years ago, yeah, I heard you.” Noct sighed, then reluctantly pulled the sweater over his head. He turned to face the mirror, and Ignis’s eyebrows shot up. The sweater was too long, hanging down below Noct’s waist, and the placement of the tentacles was rather more risqué than he’d originally thought.

“Who the hell even thinks to put octopuses on a sweater?” Noct muttered grumpily, trying to tug it straight. The tentacles on the back wriggled suggestively.

“It has never been determined who made the knitwear,” Ignis said. “Though Queen Aurelia in particular is noted for her attempts to discover the secret.”

*

Aurelia Lucis Caelum became queen at eight years old when she watched her father choke to death at dinner. They said it was an accident, a bone from the fish that had been sent specially from Galdin Quay. 

But Aurie knew her papa hated fish. 

She was a quiet child, an obedient child. A shadow, some said. A ghost. 

But there are worse things than that, waiting in the dark.

On her twentieth birthday she received a lumpy scarf, plain and the color of night. She wrapped it around her hair and face, and loosed the needles that had been concealed in between the strands of yarn. She’d made her way across the city, to manor and gambling den and whorehouse alike. And one by one, her advisors met their end. The next morning the city woke to the heads of Lord Marius Amicitia, Lady Livia Correlia, and Lord Darinus Quintus on spikes above the gates, a black scarf flapping like a banner above them all, and needles in their eyes.

The next year, the sweater she received was pale green, and the needles were tipped with poison. 

She smiled.

*

“Apparently she thought it was a game between them, a challenge,” Ignis said, trying valiantly to fix Noct’s hair. Whatever fiber the sweater was made of, it seemed to particularly conductive of electricity. 

“Even though they were trying to kill her?” Noct said, waving an arm and ruining Ignis’s work. He stopped tugging at the hair. There was no point anyway, and it wasn’t like anyone would notice, what with the sweater.

“Queen Aurelia said that the gifter had given her the strength to take back her throne, and that the assassination attempts made her stronger.” Ignis held the accompanying scarf out to Noct, a violent shade of purple with what seemed to be a fishing hook pattern on it. “And she did die peacefully at a ripe old age, so perhaps she was right.”

“Okay, but they were still trying to kill her,” Noct said, wrapping the scarf around his neck. Ignis closed his eyes briefly. It was a painful sight. “Why the hell I am wearing some sweater from assassins to a festival?”

“Ah, well, there’s a story to that too,” Ignis said. He held open the door for Noct, who trudged out into the hall.

“Of course there is,” he said, hitting the button for the elevator.

*

Good King Festus was once walking among his people, in the region of Cleigne, when he met an old woman on the road on the eve of the Feast of Shiva. In one hand the woman clutched a pair of rusty knitting needles, in the other a misshapen sweater of the purest white. King Festus was a kind man, and so he made sure to stop and offer the woman a ride in his carriage, but the woman refused, asking only one boon. King Festus must accept her gift of a sweater.

In his journey through Cleigne and the other outlying regions of Lucis, King Festus had received many gifts. Bolts of the finest silk and velvet, in the darkest black. Jewels that glinted with the light of the sun. Fabulous ebony sculptures erected in his honor. The sweater was ugly, and the color of Niflheim, not Lucis. Many would have seen this as a slight. But the king knew the woman meant well, and accepted the gift for what it was. It was not like he would wear it anyway, as Cleigne was always warm and rarely was there snow.

That night, a blizzard struck, winds roaring across the plains. In the blinding white, the king’s caravan was attacked, and he was separated from his Crownsguard. He ran as his shield commanded, saying she would follow, while he threw on the only warm clothing he had: the sweater. In the snowstorm, the white of the sweater disguised him, and despite its unfortunate appearance, it proved quite warm. When the storm passed, his Crownsguard was triumphant, and the king himself struck the final blow against his attacker while wearing the humble sweater.

Thereafter he decreed that the royals of Lucis would always accept these gifts, and wear them on the eve of the Feast of Shiva in honor of the old woman who had likely saved his life.

*

“That did not really happen,” Noct said. “King Festus was batshit, everyone knows that. He just wandered off in the storm, Gladio told me his great-great-grandmother was hunting for him for hours. He’d spotted some bird and wanted to study it.”

“Sometimes, Noct, it’s important to understand the value of propaganda,” Ignis said. “King Festus’s version of events went over with the public better than Lady Domitia’s.”

Ignis smoothly turned into the Citadel courtyard. In the mirror, he could see from Noct’s face he was unconvinced. It was likely for the best he’d also left out the fact there were bright pink kittens all over the sweater, which helped a great deal in Lady Domitia’s search for the king. 

Luckily, Ignis could be quite persuasive. 

“For example, I do look forward to the account of the time you only narrowly managed to evade a horde of ravening daemons by diving into the lake,” Ignis said as he brought the car to a stop, handing off the keys to a valet. Or as Gladio might recall it, the time Noct managed to trip over his own fishing line and fall in. 

“You know, Specs, I can kind of see it now,” Noct said, smile twitching on his lips.

*

In the days before Insomnia fell, King Regis received a black scarf with a red line running through the middle. On either side of the line, there were tiny horned men, laughing and dancing gleefully.

“Ifrit?” Clarus suggested, eying the scarf warily. 

“Perhaps,” Regis said, tucking it away. 

Something to ponder another time.

*

Noct shivered on the hard bed in a dorm room deep in Zegnautus Keep. The scratchy blankets did little to keep away the cold. But maybe if he grabbed the ones from the other beds, he’d at least be able to fall asleep. Stumbling blindly in the dark, he fumbled around until his hand fell on something soft and warm. A sweater? Better than he’d hoped. He tugged it over his head and went back to sleep. 

In the morning, he saw the sweater was orange, and in the center, there was a bright red heart with a sword through it. He considered leaving it behind, hideous as it was, but hesitated. It had been warm. Decision made, he pulled it off, but made sure to stuff it into the Armiger.

He guessed it wasn’t just the Lucian royals who got crappy sweaters as gifts.

*

“Ah, Noct, one last thing before you go,” Ardyn said. 

Fury, pain, despair. Noct wanted to scream, or cry. Or simply cut the bastard’s head off, as little as that’d do. But time was running short, and he barely heard the last thing Ardyn said before he was swallowed by the crystal.

“Aren’t you going to thank me for the sweaters?”


End file.
